Sunday, April 12, 2009

Pizza's Ready

Today was the day that my group put together a pizza game; which enabled the children to show the motor skills of throwing and catching. The object of the game was for them to throw the toppings over the oven (a set area of empty space) in the gym to their teammate to put on the pizza. After a certain amount of time we switched the sides this way each child was able to throw and catch. I believe our game went very well; our props and enthusiasm really got the kids into the game.

Looking back at my experience at St. Mary’s there have definitely been some challenges working with the kids. I think the first challenge was our experience as teachers. I strongly believe that we all have experience with working kids one-on-one, but the difference now is that there is a bunch of kids of kids to keep occupied at the same time. Keeping a whole bunch of children happy and occupied is a difficult task, but for the most part I feel with the assistance of people with more experience we were able to do a good job. I also think that another challenge that we faced was the time of day. After school programs are hard due to the fact that the kids are all hyper and just want to run around. Personally my difficulty is being assertive and running an activity; I need to get over my fear of getting in front of people and teaching a lesson. I feel with time and feeling comfortable with the activity I will be able to overcome these challenges.

I believe that provideing the right environment for the children really effect how they learn. For example, in order the grab the kids attention and get them enthusiastic about playing we played music. In order to resolve some of these difficulties, I feel I should get involved with more programs working with kids. Getting comfortable with an activity that I put together and work with the kids. I think with a little more experience I will be able to overcome my fear and positively influence the youth.